These sabo toolbox buffs are kinda crazy and nobody is talking about them

I've already switched to a full-slug play-style as soon as there is at least one toolbox in play.

And I won't dare bringing a toolbox in the game either (and probably dodge if I have a teammate with a toolbox).

Let's see how it goes.

Repair toolboxes now being a bit better at sabotaging won't make much of any difference because they are used to repair, they will only rarely have charges since they burn through them instantly on a repair. Plus even the toolbox that saw the biggest buff to its sabo speed (Commodious) is now only equal to what the Alex's Toolbox has always been, so for people actually looking to sabo, it is really only the Alex's Toolbox that has become better. It's neat that other toolboxes can now sometimes be used for an opportunistic attempt at rescuing someone in a pinch, but this will really only be a rare occurrence.

Whether the Alex's Toolbox (plus sabo speed add-ons) is overtuned now. Well, multiple things. First of all, sabo has been an underused and undertuned mechanic in this game for years and years. Ways to proactively engage the killer make for fun and exciting gameplay, and rather than improving and introducing more of these things, they have basically only been nerfed and removed throughout the years. Especially in terms of items, with unique flashlight interactions having been removed, no new items having been introduced, nor existing ones improved. It's high time some of these tools get to be more relevant (although I honestly don't expect saboing will truly become all that relevant now either, this is BHVR's nth attempt at making that happen).

These "proactive engagements" also always come with huge risks for the survivors, who are throwing themselves at the killer and can get injured and downed in the process and simultaneously fail to pull off the play. But even if they do succeed, not only is it not a "free" save as it is often being made out to, but even then it can be detrimental. To pull off a sabo play, if you don't perfectly predict which hook the killer will carry to and can position yourself there and sabo at the perfect time such that the killer notices too late and can't just carry to a different hook instead, you need to be around the killer as they pick up, try to stay in front of them and path to the hook as they carry there without letting them hit or overtake you, take a hit right under the hook, sabo during hit cooldown, and then get away. To begin with, the saboing survivor here is spending a lot of time not being on a gen, and I guarantee a lot of people would be surprised fierce with how much more decisively they could lose in such matches if survivors instead of trying to save others (even in cases where they succeed at it) would just let them get hooked and do gens. It very much isn't "free" even from a time efficiency perspective. But the next thing of course is that the saboing survivor loses a health state to prevent the hook. And the carried survivor may not even wiggle, but simply get dropped and become a slug that now needs to be healed up, requiring time too, and creating snowball potential. And of course, there is the item investment for the sabobox, as well as any perks a survivor may have brought to help with this, such as Breakout, all of which could have instead been put to other uses. There's also quite a few killers that can quickly down a rescued survivor again, making the time/health state/perk/item investment and risk factor be even less worthwhile. And then there's perks that can undermine or completely negate the ability of players to sabo in this way, most notably STBFL, Thanatophobia, Mad Grit, Agitation, Iron Grasp, Starstruck.

It should also be noted that this offensive yet more consistent way of getting sabo saves doesn't work well with other toolboxes: if you use any toolbox but the Alex's, you regularly cannot get away after taking a hit and saboing during hit cooldown, and will at most trade their hook state for your own (with them, again, potentially not even wiggling free but simply getting slugged). You would need to also add sabospeed add-ons as well as Resilience and Breakout or Overcome to try and get away without going down yourself.

I think saboing can be frustrating for killer gameplay, as picking up, carrying and hooking a survivor are part of the gameplay loop where a killer player can relax and breathe a bit, having a break from the high-focus, high-intensity aspects of the general gameplay. To have survivors be able to interfere with this gets rid of some of the downtime where you can think about the game (and the world at large) a bit, similar to survivors sitting on gens. So I do agree that things like flashlight and sabo saves should never be so overtuned that they become ubiquitous, they should be on the rarer end of things to deal with in the grand scheme of things. But I really don't think this update changes anything about that. You could just keep track and take note of how often people actually attempt (and succeed) in sabo saves against you during the next couple of weeks. I would not hesitate to wager that it will still be less than 5% of the time that you carry someone.

This update feels like someone played survivor and killer played really good so they decided to make changes based of off that. This game will never be balanced if instead of incentivizing survivors to get better you instead make unbalanced changes that only benefits one side and nerf the other.

Let me build up the whole scene to make it clear.

Carrying speed is ~3.7m/s over 16sec. The total distance killer can go for a hook is nearly 60m. Hook distance is about 25m apart. Sabo a hook right infront of killer doesnt give enough time to wiggle out.

H is hook, there are killer, down survivor and healthy survivor ready to sabo the hook right infront of killer.

But definitely, a hook sabo and a hit are not enough to make a Sabo save. Survivors need a third option, either Boilover or Breakout. Eventhen if killer feel there is not enough time to get a hook, they can drop and slug survivor if the carrying time is below 12sec. A third survivor has to go there and spend time to pick them up.

Not saying Sabo save isnt annoying, but to prove Sabo save takes more than a Flashlight save.

I pick a survivor up, walk for 3sec and see you sabo hook#1. Then I just go for hook#2. I still have 13sec left to walk to a hook. Even if you tank a hit, I still have 9sec left.

When a sabo requires a health state, its already worse than a flashlight save.

Pickrate, that's the reason. Pickrate. Ridiculous

Yeah, it's been enough time now and at least out of the five games I played tonight, three of them had survivors with at least one-two sabbo toolboxes, which made things really unfun. I''m also feeling the hit to gen regression too, pain res feels so bad, but not as bad as pop because you can't hook a survivor fast enough to make it count anymore.

it will get nerfed

Yep, just a little bit of coordination, even from SoloQ (if the teammates aren't newbs) and bombing the hook can result in a very good play from the survivors but annoying for the killer.

NGL, from my own experiences tonight, I can forsee slugging becoming more of an issue.

I did address it among the nerf for perks that reward not tunneling here (no one took notice) -

Its not an issue.

just before this buff patch, I did play with a friend and i did sabo both the hook the killer was going for with her, and the one he turned to when the first one got saboed, this was with out any perks like background player, just a toolbox. - So if that is a problem for you, then its on you and not the game.

Edit - this is what i used (pre-patch) i was at full health, so no help from resilience :

And this have been buffed now, so expect a slugfest when the killers see a toolbox.

Idk I was already going against sabo squads with alex's and breakout a couple times a night anyway and never had any problems, the only difference now is hitting them isn't worth it anymore and you go straight for the next hook. I was already pairing agitation with pain res anyway (and even without pain res I felt like agitation was a bit slept on) so I don't see this change effecting me at all.

Don’t worry I’ll tag you in a video I’m making where I denied the killer from hooking so many times they completely gave up on hooking! It was sad and I hated to do it to the poor killer but I had to demonstrate how OP it is.

I’ll comment here and tag you when I upload it after work today!😬

You got it! 🫡

And c3tooth, seeing they think is very hard to sabo deny a killer.

Year, these changes and buffs made sabo really strong and powerful. Now, survivors can use toolboxes for repairing and quick sabo or to create situations where the killer cannot hook a survivor. PreUpdate 8.0.0 sabo was completly fine and good. It required skill and good gamesense from the user to get a sabo and free escape for the other survivor. Now, everyone can use sabo without any skill. In addition, survivors can make it more easier for them by using a Putrid Oak. The result will be that killers will slug more which will be awful for both sides, survivors and killers. Then survivors feel like they have to use Unbreakable which results in either you use the same perks as everyone else or you have a big problem. This won't be funny.

I really hope the developers will undo these buffs because these buffs are way too much. It is okay if one playstyle is rather uncommon and requiers some skill because if you good at it, it gives you a good feeling. If they want that survivors use toolboxes less for repairing, they should rework the strong repairtoolboxes and Add-Ons, which are anyway too strong but this is a different story.

In their developer update for this month the developer explained that survivors only use toolboxes for repairing and they buffed sabo so survivors would play more sabotoolboxes, even though nobody was complaing about sabo. I guess they did it without thinking too much about it. It's the same like when they buffed Billy's turnrate-window from 0.75sec to 1.0sec they did it without thinking how strong this actually is or the bugfix for Plague that she also loses her power when she gets stunds by Head On, Blast Mind, or DS. Nobody was asking for this and we were happy without knowing it was a bug for five years. Then they changed it without thinking too much about what this actually means.

I mean, I did never say it cannot happen. But I dont think it will happen frequently.

You heard it here folks - Killers prefer genrushing Survivors.